Pumping Iron, Getting Carded

It was spring, and Irene Ciekielski and Maria Wojakowski of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who had been best friends since the third grade, were high school seniors. With college looming, they wanted to spend as much time together as they could, and a logical place to do that was the Metropolitan Pool and Fitness Center in nearby Williamsburg.

The city-run center, however, was being roiled by changes in its workout hours, and while the two teenagers lost some shared time in the weight room, they discovered a cause.

Last April, shortly after the arrival of a new manager, the center instituted a schedule with separate workout hours for people older and younger than 18. Young people, who had been allowed to exercise on any weekday afternoon, were restricted to three days a week, and older people, who had been allowed to share the gym during youth hours, were kept out during those periods.

For Ms. Wojakowski, who turned 18 in March, and Ms. Ciekielski, whose 18th birthday was in October, it meant the end of workouts together. But the inconvenience, they argued, was shared by all gym members.

"I've worked out with these people for two years, and everyone was fine," Ms. Ciekielski said the other day, during her winter break from Pace University in Manhattan. "The adults helped out the youth -- it was like another watchful eye."

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The two young women started a petition drive to seek to reverse the changes and presented the city's Parks Department staff with more than 100 signatures, but so far to no avail. Adrian Benepe, the city's parks commissioner, said last week that the new hours had been prompted by complaints about older men bothering younger girls.

"I suppose that for the person who's gotten used to going at certain times, it might provide a modest inconvenience," Mr. Benepe said, adding, "We wouldn't have taken this action if things were going O.K."

Now, the discontent has spawned another controversy. Robert McClain, a recreation director at the center who had joined some members in criticizing the new hours, was told last month that he was being transferred, against his will, to another city recreation center in Brownsville. Warner Johnston, a Parks Department spokesman, explained the move by saying that Mr. McClain's skills would be best used at a larger gym.

Mr. McClain, however, sees the move as retaliation for speaking up. Ms. Ciekielski and Ms. Wojakowski, for their part, are circulating a new petition seeking to reverse the transfer; as of Thursday, they had collected 112 signatures. JAKE MOONEY